Cosgrove urges unified flood recovery

Supplies are loaded into an Army Chinook helicopter bound for Theodore.

George Roberts: ABC

The man who led the recovery effort after Cyclone Larry in 2006, retired Army General Peter Cosgrove, says Queensland's flood recovery taskforce must take a unified approach to tackling the reconstruction effort.

More than 200,000 people in 40 communities across Queensland have been impacted in some way by the floods, with waters affecting an area approximately the size of New South Wales.

Major General Mick Slater has been tasked to head the recovery effort and is due to arrive in the flood-hit city of Rockhampton today.

General Cosgrove told PM there is a lot of work ahead for Major General Slater and urged him to consult affected communities to ensure the taskforce tackles the reconstruction effort as one.

"There's a job of stitching up to be done, if I can put it that way," he said.

"There's so many people working enormously hard, lots and lots of people... often the great work to be done is to coordinate what it is they're doing so you get synergies and you don't get wasted effort."

General Cosgrove says Major General Slater's appointment is an inspired choice.

"He is a great leader and he is the sort of fellow who is no frills, no pretence, he is a really practical soldier. His heart will go out to the people," he said.

"My advice to him will be to form a relationship as quickly as possible with the community leaders in each of the affected communities - and there's a very large number of them - so that they can all be on the same message.

"That is, they're there for the people who've been affected by this and in fixing things, they'll be helping people."

'Things will improve'

Major General Slater said on Wednesday that community consultation was at the top of his to-do list.

"The next couple of days will be spent... pulling my team together, getting to know the key players and commencing consultation with people who are on the ground in the communities who have suffered," he said.

General Cosgrove says the natural disaster brings many different challenges to the recovery effort.

"The major challenge on the health side is obviously that polluted water gets mixed in with water supplies," he said.

"So for quite some time you have to worry about the health of people and indeed livestock who might be exposed to polluted water."

General Cosgrove says a lot of the recovery will focus on material objects like housing, but it is also important to give people hope.

"It's the problem of people who have lost their place to live and their livelihood for hopefully a very short time, but absolutely at the moment they are looking for shelter, they're looking for food, they're looking for something to give them the confidence that things will be back the way they were.

"So I think one of the great things to be done in the early part of a recovery from a natural disaster is to just keep drumming out the message that there will be an improvement.

"Things will improve every day, and not only will the place get back to the way it was, hopefully it will be even better."

Mopping up

Premier Anna Bligh, who announced the taskforce on Wednesday, says the disaster gripping the state is unprecedented and will require an unparalleled rebuilding effort.

She says the taskforce will focus on rebuilding homes, economies, regional communities and infrastructure.

Authorities say the worst is over in Rockhampton, but more homes may have to be evacuated with flood levels likely to remain high for days.

There has also been relief for St George residents in the state's southern inland, where the weekend floods are now expected to fall short of the predicted 14-metre peak.

The flood threat in the town has been downgraded but it is still expected to inundate about 30 homes.

Meanwhile some Theodore residents were allowed to return to their businesses temporarily yesterday for the first time since floods swamped their town.

The Defence Force is flying in a treatment plant to provide the town with clean drinking water.

Residents are also returning to the flood-soaked town of Condamine in the Western Darling Downs. They stayed at a mining camp on the outskirts of town last night while sewerage and water systems were checked.